


Blood on the Bowstrings

by nuclearmuffins



Series: The Caster's Canticle [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canon Divergent Hawke Family, Family Angst, Four Hawke Siblings, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hawke Family (Dragon Age) Feels, i'll edit this later, please excuse my shitty writing, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 18:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18816895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearmuffins/pseuds/nuclearmuffins
Summary: Maura Hawke's brother Garrick dies at Ostagar and she's left to pick up the pieces.Originally written for a prompt on r/dragonage.





	Blood on the Bowstrings

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Maura thought she would always wonder if Garrick knew he was going to his death on that battlefield the day he left.

He’d packed little when he and Carver left for Ostagar. Carver had chosen to travel light as well, but he’d given the reason that they wouldn’t be gone long, to begin with, that he hadn’t needed much besides his sword. “It’s a _battle_ , Mother,” her little brother had said to their pale-faced, worry-stricken mother before they had left. “All I need to do is hit the darkspawn with a few right strikes, and you don’t need much more for that than a blade in your hand.”

Garrick had snorted at their brother's words. “Or, if you’re smart, you’ll stay at least ten feet from the thick of things and take up a safer discipline. Like archery. But you want all the glory, don’t you, little brother?”

Carver had tried to clout Garrick in the ear then, but Garrick had his rogue’s agility and easily dodged their younger brother’s incoming fist. Bethany had started laughing first, her usual giggle, then Garrick had joined in with a whoop, hand splayed over his chest and nearly convulsing into fits. Before she’d known it, the air had left her own lips in a breathless burst, and she buried her face in her hands to try and disguise her ear-to-ear grin. She hadn’t remembered when Carver had joined the laughter, but soon it was the four of them in their kitchen, Garahel barking along.

If she had known that was going to be the last time all four of them would be together like this - laughing with each other, like proper siblings… she didn’t know what she could have done. Commanded her voice to crow louder, join in sooner, maybe have looped her arms around her brothers’ shoulders…

But Garrick was gone now. It would never be the four Hawke siblings again.

Carver had put on the new suit of steel splint mail Harritt had made (as a favour to Malcolm Hawke, the cantankerous blacksmith had said; he owed him, and in lieu of the man himself he would repay the debt to his children, instead.) A shining sword at his side, polished to gleaming; the care package she, Mother, and Bethany had made for the two of them in his pack. Garrick had only put on his old creaking hunting leathers, treated with umber-coloured finish and painted with red stripes, and filled his quiver with arrows they had fletched together by the fire only a few nights before.

She had expected him to take the finely wrought, mahogany-finished longbow he adored so much. A travelling merchant had spun a lively tale for them of Antivan pirates, ships with overly complicated names, and storms of arrows clearing decks of sailors, and she’d watched her brother grow a starry-eyed hunger in his eyes. No matter if that ridiculous story was the truth or some fabrication that strangely-accented merchant had spun to cleanse his hands of old stock, Garrick had emptied his purse of every sovereign he’d had that day, and no matter how little sense that purchase had made to her at the time, that bow had not failed him once. It had been his steady, steadfast partner these past two years. It hadn’t seemed like a question that needed to be asked - of course he would bring it along. But instead he had strung an old hunting bow he hadn’t picked up since he had bought the Antivan longbow, and he had pulled her aside from the rest of their family with a weak smile on his face and his most prized possession in his hands, and held it out to her with an uncharacteristically sheepish expression - “You’ll keep it safe for me, won’t you, Maur?”

Maura had only stared at it when he held it out to her, all the confusion she had wanted to express bubbling in her throat, unvoiced. He had once told her that the soul of an archer was their weapon, that the right bow in the right hand was not merely a tool to fire arrows from, but an extension of their arm, and him handing it over now felt oddly like he had just cut off his hand and given it to her.

She hadn’t reached out to take it from him at first, merely swallowed, and tilted her head up to look him in the eye. “Or you could just bring it with you, you know. You never let it out of your sight.” He had never even let her touch it before - he’d protected it too closely, but here he was now, holding it out for her, asking her to guard it for him.

He waved a hand dismissively. “Something this beautiful? Jealous bastards will try to steal her away from me, I just know it,” his smile split into a sudden grin. “It’s too good for the darkspawn, anyways. Blighted bastards don’t deserve a single shot from her.” He extended it to her again, nearly pushing it into her hands. “You’ll take care of her for me. I know you will. You’ve been doing that for me all these years.”

She couldn’t say no after that. She’d silently nodded and gingerly took it from him by the grip, lovingly wrapped by him in soft doeskin. They were both quiet as she reached up to wrap her arms around him (somewhere inside of her, she had felt a twinge of annoyance that he and Carver had both somehow gotten so much taller than her, even if she was no dwarf herself). “Make sure Carver doesn’t get into too much trouble. And watch yourself. I want you to be careful.”

He’d made a light chuckle then. “Maker, you’ve been telling me that since the day I was born, I swear. I’ll be fine, Maur. Just you wait.”

But she thought she had detected _something_ in his voice as he stepped out of her embrace, a coat of fear he had tried to disguise under his normal air of confidence. Something had wavered in him, making that air seem more like a veneer than anything. Combined with him leaving his favourite bow with her... maybe it was paranoia, on her part. Or maybe he had known he wouldn’t be coming back.

He and Carver had both turned back to wave, once. His eyes had lingered a little over their house, over Bethany, over Mother, over her. Then he had gone without a word. The last time she would ever see him.

All his old things were still in his room, exactly where he left them.

His bed was as unmade as the day he left. None of them had the heart to touch a single thing, not even to tidy up a little. He would do it himself after he came back, they all had told themselves (no matter how unlikely that was), and touching a single thing would have been like defiling it.

He wouldn’t come back now, they knew that. But moving a single thing… it still felt wrong.

It felt wrong even going inside without him there, but her legs had moved from her place by the door frame, unbidden, almost as if they were being commanded by an outside force. It had hit her suddenly, that mingled smell of sweat and animal blood that followed him wherever he went, still lingering in every crevice of his room, and it’s almost as if he’s there with her standing by her as he always did.

Her steps had carried her to his bed. As if she was being commanded, she sat down on his bed, over the mess he had made of his sheets. Her eyes knit shut, away from the reality of her brother being gone for good. He had only been ten months younger than her. She had lived most of her twenty-four years with her obnoxious, chaotic, maddening younger brother at her side, and now he was just…

She didn’t want to say it. If she admitted it, it would somehow become more _real._

She wondered if this would be what Bethany would feel like if Carver had died on that battlefield instead. Like a part of her soul had been ripped out and crushed beneath the feet of the darkspawn.

She still remembered their father’s funeral, walking away from their father’s still-blazing pyre, when she had taken his arm and pulled him aside from their silent brother, their teary-eyed sister, and unmoving mother and had told him “We have to take care of them now. For Father.” She had half expected him to start an argument of some sort, but he had simply nodded to her. “We’ll do it, the two of us together, then.”

Before then he had been her unpredictable wild flame of a brother, hot-headed and impatient, the one she always had to hold back from starting unnecessary fights or causing some sort of trouble. He still was all of those things, of course, but after that day he had always been someone she could count on. She still couldn’t stop herself from scolding him, and he couldn’t stop himself from getting into the same trouble he always did, but they had managed while their mother slowly pulled herself out of the grief and the twins grew around them.

Now Mother had sunk back into the grief that had nearly swallowed her whole when Father died.

Carver had come back home two days ago, stumbling, his formerly new, shining armour covered in blood and guts; the only thing at his side was his broadsword. She’d known from the second he came back alone. They all had. But Mother hadn’t seemed to want to believe.

Maura had guided her little brother into a chair by a fire, kneeling in front of him, Bethany dashed for her staff (the risk was worth it if it was Carver), but Mother had just stood still for a minute. When she spoke, her voice came out like it had strangled in her throat. “Where’s your brother? Where’s Garrick?”

“He’s gone. He’s-” Carver trailed off, the word he was trying to get out escaping instead as a choke. Bethany’s staff had stilled where it lingered over the worst of his wounds, her breathing hitched.

Maura had knelt in front of her brother, dark grey eyes staring into blue. “How?”

Bethany’s eyes widened. “Maur, don’t,” her sister whispered to her, a little fear creeping into her voice. But Maura’s eyes didn’t leave their brother’s. Not until he gave her the answer.

“He…” Carver had stopped, taking in a sharp intake of breath and swallowing - bile, even tears maybe. “I was surrounded. By a few of those… small ones. Genlocks.” Carver picked at the blood on his armour as swirls of light flowed from Bethany’s staff over his cuts, suturing his skin like needle and thread over cloth. “I heard him shout my name. I don’t know what happened after, I just…”

Maura’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding against each other as she had tried to find all the words she had wanted to say. “Garrick’s an archer,” she finally said, her voice flat. “He wouldn’t- he wouldn’t be fighting in the thick of things unless…” Everything that could have happened on that battlefield flashed in her mind then. Garrick noticing their brother about to be overwhelmed. Running to save him. Cut down by an unexpected blade.

Carver’s eyes closed. Maura pushed herself upright, turning away in the direction of her room. She hadn’t wanted to think of what she had just said then, but scanning them over now she wished her words hadn’t come out like an accusation towards her brother. If anyone, she had wanted to accuse herself, for not being there, for not being able to save them. She had tried to enlist with them, to fight alongside them, but reason had overwritten her desires.

It was the power singing beneath her veins, especially the forbidden one that she and Father had both worked so hard to clamp down on, to hide, that held her back. What if she had been pinned down as Carver was, and instinct caused her to lash out with flame? Or even worse, caused her to wield the blood running through her as a weapon, a chain to leash them? She knew she couldn’t have, in the end, but it didn’t stop her from wishing, from wondering if she was there, if she could have stopped it.

Her eyes wandered over to the bow she had left propped up against his wall. Without really knowing what she was doing her hands had reached out for it, gripping it in her hands.

It still felt out of place there. But she held onto it tighter.

The darkspawn were coming for them all. Everyone in Lothering knew it, with all their unspoken fear dripping into every word, every sentence, every movement. They would trample over everything they had. The life they had worked and bled to build.

Garrick was the first thing they took from them. Their home would be next - Blight seeping into the soil of Bethany’s flower garden, the thatch of their roof lit ablaze, their barn reduced to splinters. They wouldn’t be able to take everything with them… but she would be damned if she let them take all she had left of her brother.

Garrick kept his hunting equipment in a box below his bed, and she rifled through its contents - trap parts, dull knives, splintered arrows - until she found a ball of string. Muscle memory flowed into her fingers. She would never be as skilled of an archer as him - as he had been, but she’d walked the woods with him more times than she could remember, and her hands still knew just what to do with the bow in her hands.

She hadn’t been able to protect one brother. But she could still use his weapon to protect what remained of her family.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to the Discord for their support, and the wonderful group of writers we have on the sub, especially to FactoryKat for the original prompt and Toshi_Nama and Nutmeg for encouragement.
> 
> Previously titled The Hawke Family Torture Session. Sorry not sorry for the feels.


End file.
